Chapter 8 #3
"I'm in love with you," I repeat, more confidently this time. "Not according to a publicity strategy or a marketing plan. Not for the benefit of hotel occupancy rates or investor confidence. I love you, Charlie. Just you."
Her hands tremble slightly as she sets the plates down on the coffee table. "Bash, you don't have to...”
"I know I don't have to," I interrupt, unable to bear the thought that she might see this as another business maneuver. "I want to. I need to. Because the thought of going back to my life without you in it is unbearable."
Tears gather in her eyes, making them shine in the firelight. "This wasn't supposed to happen," she whispers. "We had an agreement."
"Fuck the agreement," I say with feeling. "Agreements change. People change. I've changed, Charlie. Because of you."
She shakes her head slightly, as if trying to process my words. "How do I know this is real? That it's not just...the intensity of the situation, the intimacy we've shared? We've been living in this bubble for six weeks, playing roles...”
"Is that what you think this is?" I ask, my heart sinking. "A role? An act?"
"No," she admits, her voice small but certain. "Not for me."
Hope surges through me, almost painful in its intensity. "Not for me either. Nothing about the way I feel for you is manufactured, Charlie. It's the most real thing in my life."
She looks at me, really looks at me, as if trying to read the truth in my eyes. "I'm afraid," she confesses, so quietly I almost don't hear it.
I step closer, close enough to touch but not reaching for her yet. "Of what?"
"Of believing this, wanting this, and then losing it." A single tear escapes, tracing a silvery path down her cheek. "You have a reputation, Bash. You build beautiful things and then move on when you've maximized their value. What happens when you decide I'm no longer valuable?"
The question strikes at my core, at the fears Anthony so accurately identified. My pattern of walking away before I can be left behind.
"I've never loved anything I've walked away from," I tell her, the truth raw and unvarnished.
"Not like this. Not in a way that rewrites everything I thought I knew about myself.
" I take a breath, offering her the vulnerability she deserves.
"I'm scared too, Charlie. Terrified of how much I need you, of how completely you've dismantled every wall I've built.
But I'm more afraid of losing you than I am of letting you see all of me. "
She reaches up, her fingers trembling slightly as they trace the line of my jaw. "I see you, Bash. I've been seeing you all along."
The admission undoes me completely. I capture her hand, turning my face to press a kiss to her palm in the gesture that's become so natural between us. "Then you know I'm telling the truth. I love you, Charlie Davis. And I want a real marriage, not a contract with an expiration date."
Her breath catches, fresh tears spilling over. "I love you too," she whispers, the words setting off an explosion of joy in my chest. "So much it terrifies me."
I gather her close, her body fitting against mine with the perfect familiarity we've developed over these weeks together. "Then we'll be terrified together," I promise against her hair. "But we'll figure it out. For real this time."
Charlie pulls back slightly, her eyes searching mine. "What about the investors? The publicity narrative? Everything we've built around our 'whirlwind romance'?"
"All of that was true," I point out, brushing a tear from her cheek. "We just didn't know it yet. The romance was real, Charlie. The whirlwind too. The only lie was that we planned for it to end."
A small smile curves her lips. "So, we're rewriting the ending?"
"If you'll have me," I say, suddenly overwhelmed by the magnitude of what I'm asking, what I'm offering. "No contracts this time. Just us, choosing each other, every day."
In answer, Charlie rises on her toes, pressing her lips to mine in a kiss that feels like a beginning rather than a continuation. I wrap my arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet as I deepen the kiss, pouring every ounce of newly acknowledged love into the connection.
When we finally break apart, both breathless, I'm reluctant to set her down, to allow even inches of separation between us.
"Is that a yes?" I ask, needing to hear the words.
Charlie laughs, the sound bright and joyous. "Yes, Bash. I choose us."
I carry her toward the bedroom, unwilling to let go now that I've finally acknowledged the depth of what I feel for her. She winds her arms around my neck, pressing kisses to my jaw, my throat, anywhere she can reach.
"We should finish our conversation," she teases as I lay her gently on the bed. "Make concrete plans."
"Later," I promise, my hands already finding the hem of the sweater she borrowed, drawing it slowly upward. "Right now, I need to make love to my wife. My real wife."
Charlie's eyes darken with desire, her body arching into my touch. "I like the sound of that."
I take my time undressing her, savoring each inch of exposed skin as if it's the first time and not the countless we've shared over these weeks.
In many ways, it is a first, the first time without the shadow of contractual obligations hanging over us, the first time with our feelings fully acknowledged and embraced.
When she's naked beneath me, her chestnut hair spread across the pillows, I pause to simply look at her. "You're beautiful," I tell her, the words inadequate for the emotion swelling in my chest. "And I can't believe you're really mine."
"I am," she confirms softly, reaching up to trace my features with tender fingers. "Have been for weeks now, whether we admitted it or not."
The confession undoes me. I capture her mouth in a kiss that's both gentle and desperate, trying to convey the depth of feeling words can't adequately express. Her arms wind around my neck, pulling me closer as the kiss deepens, tongues tangling in a dance we've perfected.
Her hands make quick work of my remaining clothes, pushing them impatiently aside until we're skin to skin, nothing between us but the growing heat of desire. I trail kisses down her throat, across her collarbone, taking my time to worship every inch of her.
"Bash," she breathes when I capture a nipple between my lips, her back arching off the bed. "Please."
I lavish attention on her breasts, alternating between gentle caresses and more demanding suction until she's writhing beneath me, her fingers tangled in my hair.
Only then do I continue my journey downward, pressing kisses across the soft plane of her stomach, the jut of her hipbones, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
When I finally taste her, my tongue parting her folds with deliberate slowness, the sound she makes is somewhere between a gasp and a sob. I take my time here too, cataloging each response, each tremor and moan, as I build her pleasure with focused dedication.
"I love you," I murmur against her most sensitive flesh, the words vibrating through her core. "Every part of you."
Her thighs tremble around my head, her release building as I slide two fingers inside her, curling them to find the spot that makes her cry out my name.
I keep a steady rhythm, watching her face as pleasure overwhelms her, her back arching, her eyes flying open to meet mine in a moment of profound connection as she comes apart.
I kiss my way back up her body as she recovers, her skin flushed and damp with exertion. When I reach her mouth, she kisses me hungrily, tasting herself on my lips with a moan that sends electricity straight to my already painfully hard cock.
"I need you," she whispers, her hands sliding down my back to pull me closer. "Inside me. Now."
I position myself between her thighs, the head of my cock nudging at her entrance. "I love you, Charlie," I tell her again, the words becoming easier, more natural with each repetition. "This is real. We're real."
"I love you too," she replies, her eyes locked with mine as I push slowly into her, both of us gasping at the exquisite sensation of joining. "So real."
I begin to move, setting a rhythm that's neither hurried nor teasing, just perfect, deep connection. Charlie meets each thrust, her legs wrapping around my waist to take me deeper, her nails scraping lightly down my back in a way she knows drives me wild.
The intensity builds between us, a feedback loop of pleasure and emotion that transcends the physical. I feel her begin to tighten around me again, her second orgasm approaching, and I shift slightly to drive deeper, hitting the spot that makes her gasp with each thrust.
"Come with me," she pleads, her eyes never leaving mine. "Together."
I increase my pace, chasing our shared release, every nerve ending alive with sensation. When she shatters around me, her inner walls pulsing and clenching, I follow her over the edge, my release crashing through me in waves of pleasure so intense they border on pain.
We cling to each other in the aftermath, neither willing to break the connection, our bodies still joined as our breathing slowly returns to normal. I brush damp strands of hair from her forehead, pressing a kiss there with reverence.
"Stay with me," I whisper, the request encompassing far more than just this moment.
Charlie's smile is radiant, her eyes shining with a happiness I've never seen before. "Always," she promises. "No contracts needed."
As we lie tangled together, the blizzard raging outside our windows while we remain safe and warm in our private cocoon, I realize that for the first time in my life, I'm not planning an exit strategy.
There's only this, Charlie in my arms, loving me despite knowing me, choosing us over all other considerations.
The ornament from Sea & Shard will be ready soon, but I already know its message rings true: Choose Us. Not as a question or a plea, but as a statement of fact, a declaration of the path we've already begun to walk together.
Two weeks ago, I dreaded the approach of our contract's end date.
Now, wrapped in Charlie's arms with her heart beating steadily against mine, I find myself looking forward to it, not as an ending, but as the beginning of something genuine and lasting.
Our real marriage, built on a foundation that began with fake vows but has grown into something neither of us could have anticipated.
Something worth choosing, every day, for all the days to come.